Prof.Seishi Takamura

In daily life, we use cameras to capture images and videos, store them, and view them on displays, often believing that what we capture represents the true nature of the object. However, light is actually a collection of photons, whose arrival is entirely stochastic, unpredictable, and therefore time-varying. This means that even a light source with constant brightness produces time-varying measurements on a frame-by-frame basis.

Fortunately, the distribution of photon arrivals follows a mathematically rigid pattern: the Poisson distribution. This property allows us to accurately reveal true image brightness, even exceeding the upper bit limits of an image sensor. It also opens up new possibilities, such as precise sensor calibration, SPAD (Single-Photon Avalanche Diode) sensor photon counting calibration, and could be more.

Moreover, this investigation has led to breakthroughs in precise film grain modeling — a topic that has recently gained attention among analog film photographers. It also provides a scientific basis for reproducing film grain mechanisms in international standards for video coding, such as H.266/VVC.

Biography:

Dr. Seishi Takamura is a Research Professor at NTT Corporation and a Professor at Hosei University, Japan. He earned his B.E., M.E., and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, at the University of Tokyo, in 1991, 1993, and 1996, respectively. His current research interests include efficient video coding and ultra-high-quality video processing.

Dr. Takamura has held numerous key roles in the research and academic community. He served as Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology (2006–2014), Editor-in-Chief of the Institute of Image Information and Television Engineers (ITE), and as an Executive Committee Member of IEEE Region 10 and Japan Council. He also served as Chair of the Japan National Body and as Japan's Head of Delegation for ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29. From 2005 to 2006, he was a Visiting Scientist at Stanford University, California, USA.

Dr. Takamura has received 78 academic awards, including the ITE Niwa-Takayanagi Awards (Best Paper in 2002, Achievement in 2017), the Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ) Nagao Special Researcher Award in 2006, the ITE Fujio Frontier Award in 2014, and the Telecommunications Advancement Foundation (TAF) Telecom System Technology Awards in 2004, 2008, and 2015, all with highest honors. He also received the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers (IEICE) 100-Year Memorial Best Paper Award in 2017, the Distinguished Achievement and Contributions Award in 2025, the Kenjiro Takayanagi Achievement Award in 2019, the Industrial Standardization Merit Award from Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in 2019, and the IPSJ/ITSCJ Standardization Achievement Award in 2022. 

Dr. Takamura is an IEEE Fellow, an IEICE Fellow, an IPSJ Fellow, an ITE Fellow, an AIAA Fellow, and an AIIA Fellow. He is also a member of Japan MENSA, the President of IIEEJ (2024–2026), and a Vice President of the Asia-Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association (APSIPA, 2020–2023).

Address:Japan